We are now firmly in the middle of another hot and eventful Montreal summer. This is, as is well known, synonymous with terrace season, festival season, and overall increased nightlife. It is against this backdrop that Montreal locals Karma Glider release their debut album: From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth; a reverb soaked pop rock album that explores themes of excess and reconnecting with past lovers.
I will start by saying that a humid July in Montreal does seem like an auspicious time to release a collection of jangly, sometimes noisy, nostalgia-filled rock songs about life in your twenties. The liner notes explain that the album itself is somewhat of a decade in review for frontman Susil Sharma as it follows “a life punctuated by alcoholism, drug abuse, romantic excess, and mildly criminal behaviour, before finding clarity through sobriety.”
Musically many tried and true techniques are used to evoke a summery nostalgia. Those who remember the heyday of The Strokes will immediately recognize the megaphone style EQ and blasé attitude à la Julian Casablancas that Sharma utilises in the opening track “Rock and Roll.” The same blasé vocals recur at various points including on “Love Bleeds” which has a rather catchy chorus, I must say. Elsewhere we instead hear the timeless tambourine playing 16th notes with an accent on two and four; namely, on the track “Breakdown.”
Some songs on the album are decidedly more raw than others which gives it some nice variety; the tune “Wait For You,” for example, ends with amp feedback and gives way to “The Breaking Light” which opens with reverb soaked guitar chords, a compressed drumset, and a marimba riff. Much more pop, in other words. You could, in fact, summarize the track order by saying it is a cohesive scattering of pop punk, post-punk, and shoegaze with interludes in between.
If I had to complain about anything, it would probably be the lyrics. They do come across as rather direct and sometimes cheesy to me. But then again, if the thesis of the album is to capture the life of a 20-something-year-old as he gets his act together, more cryptic and highly poetic lyrics may very well have been out of place. Overall, I would say From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth is worth a listen this summer. Perhaps on a terrace while you dwell on a lost love or two.
